Ricky Burns moving up to 140 for next fight on October 4th

By Boxing News - 08/20/2014 - Comments

burns8oBy Scott Gilfoid: Former two division world champion Ricky Burns (31-4-1, 11 KOs) will be moving up to the light welterweight division for his next fight on October 4th in Leeds against an opponent still to be determined.

Burns, 31, has lost his last two fights in defeats against Dejan Zlaticanin and Terence Crawford this year. You’ve really got to call it a 3-fight losing streak for Burns, because he clearly lost to Raymundo Beltran last September in a fight that the judges scored a 12 round draw in their fight in Glasgow, Scotland.

Burns’ manager Alex Morrison thinks his recent ring problems are due to his struggles to make the 135 pound limit for the lightweight division. So he thinks those problems will be solved with Burns moving up in weight 5 pounds to the 140 pound division. Morrison thinks that Burns will be able to win a third division world title now that he’s moving up in weight.

“Ricky was finding it increasingly harder to make the weight,” Morrison said to BBC Scotland. “He was virtually eating nothing before the weigh in and I think that had a lot to do with his last three performances. He is just looking forward to October and fighting at the new weight. We’re planning on him winning a third world title.”

Burns’ problems didn’t just start this year. He was struggling last year in his fights against Beltran and Jose Gonzales. If it’s a weight problem that has been causing Burns’ problems then it started last year when he first started struggling.

As far as Burns winning a 3rd division world title, I don’t see it happening. He beat a weight drained Roman Martinez to pick up the WBO super featherweight title in 2010.

In winning his second world title, Burns was given the WBO lightweight title outside of the ring without him having to beat anyone. In other words, the WBO gave Burns the title shortly after he defeated Michael Katsidis by a 12 round decision to win the interim WBO lightweight title.

It’s hard to count that as an actual world title for Burns because he didn’t beat anyone to earn the belt. It was given to him by the WBO. I can’t see Burns beating WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri. I definitely don’t see Burns beating WBA/WBC 140 pound champion Danny Garcia, and I see IBF 140lb champ Lamont Peterson being too good for Burns as well.

It would be better if Burns were to stay at 135 and focus on taking the domestic scraps that his promoter Eddie Hearn has been talking about. He could fight Anthony Crolla, Kevin Mitchell and Derry Mathews and get a nice payday out of the fights.



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